It must be time to resurrect 'Now and Then' images.
Unfortunately in the fast moving app development arena, apps come and go the National Trust's "Lost! 100 lost buildings of Melbourne" is no longer available, (I first encountered this Augment Reality app in 2012, the
interactive 3D app enabled users to "ghost" - visually overlay buildings
from the past onto the present, by augmenting the iPhone's existing
camera function. A history, photos and stories of these often
long-demolished buildings was also available), likewise the "StreetMuseum" from London.
Fortunately people have utilised the app and we can see the 'now and thens' they have created, and published in a Daily Mirror article.
This image shows Piccadilly Circus, Coronation day, June 1953. Crowds
gather to witness the Coronation procession of Elizabeth II. The coronation went ahead in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953, and at the Queen's request, the entire ceremony was televised throughout the
Commonwealth, and watched by an estimated twenty million people.
People and traffic in Oxford Street around the turn of the 20th century.
Christina Broom at this time photographed London street scenes to
reproduce as postcards for sale.
Street scene at Covent Garden with underground station and horse and
cart in the background. George Davison Reid photographed activity in the
marketplace from opposite Covent Garden Underground station on Long
Acre. A police constable was often needed to control the congestion of
the horses and carts and increasing numbers of motorised vehicles. The
long established market place was under pressure to move. The congested
facilities were described at the time as 'altogether inadequate to the
necessities of the trade'. However, the fruit and vegetable market did
not relocate until 1973.
And my personal favourite, it is the children which really elevate its impression.
The pressure to build upwards is coming from demands on the Greater
London Assembly and local authorities to come up with more housing at a
time of very high land prices. Pictured here is the west side of Tower
Bridge showing London as it is now and back in the 19th Century
